<<Everything I've seen says that you should convert if your income will be higher after retirement. That makes sense, but it doesn't seem to say enough.

I am 25, so I'm in pretty much the same situation as the original poster. My understanding is that Roth-IRAs grow tax free, but regular IRAs grow tax deferred, and the original contributions are taxed now for Roth-IRA and non-deductible regular IRA, later for regular deductible. So, in addition to being better if you'll be taxed more during retirement than you are now, Roth-IRA beats non-deductible IRA hands-down, and it beats deductible IRA if the income on the IRA is going to be significant compared to the contributions (= long time until retirement).

But I haven't seen anyone explain things in this way, so I'm concerned that I'm missing something.>>

See the posts of 2/1/98 in this folder, subject "Roth Contributions and Conversions." They will help somewhat to explain things. The decisions are not "no brainers" in this area.

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